Seventy percent of change management projects fail.
This is a statistic Aldine Bell has read on paper and one she’s seen play out over and over again.
“As someone who has watched this happen across three different organizations and industries,” Bell says, “I was like, ‘What's going on here? What is really going on here?’”
Bell started her career in human resources and about ten years ago transitioned to project-oriented work as a consultant, where she’s been exposed to projects within companies throughout the United States.
“There started to be a lot of similarities that I would see in these projects,” she says. “The people that were working on the projects would struggle. I didn’t know if it was because of the communications or alignment or exactly what was happening that was generating so much flux in the system.”
This curiosity in change management and a passion for aligning people with mission and purpose, and advancing business and society, is what led Bell to pursue a PhD at Weatherhead School of Management in the Management: Designing Sustainable Systems program.
“I want to sharpen my skills and really increase my credibility as a practitioner,” Bell says. “What I learn and what I see and observe, I can put it into practice by influencing and leading others.”
As a resident of Iowa, Bell travels to Cleveland for the program and says she’s been able to use what she’s learned in her work as the director of organizational development at The Walt Disney Company––specifically for an enterprise resource planning project she’s focused on.
“I’m in the quantitative analysis phase of the program [at Weatherhead],” Bell says. “That has sharpened my skills when looking at a situation and constructing a model to measure what we’re doing and see where we can make an impact or where we can make a difference.”
Bell recalls one of her favorite classes she’s attended so far––focused on collective action––has greatly impacted her work.
“It helped me understand that we don’t live in this world of black and white,” she says. “We've got all these different angles and it's like how do you draw a perspective while you encompass all of that?”
In a prior position as the program director for the city of Cedar Rapids, Bell says she used the collective action concept for a mission the city had on expanding diversity and awareness within a community.
“Prior to that I had done change management work, but it was all for an organization within an organization and not necessarily at a community level,” she says. “I had to implement a program that was outside of those [organization] walls and I learned you can use the same concepts that you would typically use internally out in the community. Collective action is really interesting because you could use it to try to influence anyone.”
Upon graduation in the spring of 2024, Bell hopes to become a thought leader in the change management field and contribute by disseminating information she’s learned and sharing research she’s completed.
“The rigor that I'm going through by getting this degree and being in this program really gives me the confidence to know that I am a thought leader,” she says. “To bring this level of authority to these situations and discuss it with other business influencers can make a difference in organizations.”
When asked what she loves most about Weatherhead, Bell responds, “The professors. When they talk when they’re in class and teaching us, it’s like being in the presence of these really profound people who are masters at what they do,” she says. “I am grateful to be their student.”